


rose-fingered moon

by ronsenboobi (snewvilliurs)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-06 23:06:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11046222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snewvilliurs/pseuds/ronsenboobi
Summary: There's a lot on Keyleth's mind, and Vex hopes to distract her from whatever is worrying her. Also: hot springs and feathers. NSFW.(Set vaguely around the Westruun/Umbrasyl arc, vaguely alternate canon that doesn't take into account canon established relationships.)





	rose-fingered moon

**Author's Note:**

> I asked for NSFW prompts on [Tumblr](http://ronsenboobi.tumblr.com) and a visionary anon suggested Vex teasing Keyleth, which deeply inspired my "make the femslash you want to see in the world" philosophy. Thanks again for the prompt, anon!

"You know," Vex says softly, with a playful edge to her voice as it echoes in the space around them, "most people would just go into the water if they had a hot spring at their disposal."

It pulls Keyleth out of her reverie, far from the heavy spiral of anxiety and rage and helplessness she's been sinking into, the pull getting heavier with every passing day. She's always had her head in the clouds—Vex says it's in the trees, looking at the leaves and the bark and the way the light slips through their branches, that she's just not looking down at the ground and that her clumsiness comes from tripping on roots she's not focused on. These days, though, she's only looking at the roots, and there's something inside her that makes them twist and writhe until they start reaching for her ankles just to make her fall.

But Vex tugs her back with just a few words, and she's not in any forest at all. She's here, right now, in the sub-basement of Scanlan's mansion they didn't even know existed, and Vex is giving her one of those wry smiles of hers that she was never quite able to look away from. When Keyleth found the spring, she wanted to get Pike and Vex here and no one else; just the girls, and, well, she did have good intentions when she instead alerted everyone through her earring. Pike may not be here (and it never feels quite as whole and "just the girls" when she isn't), but at least there's Vex, and being alone with her is always different. Safe. Tense, but in a good way, like powerful magic sparking in her fingers.

Vex reaches out, close enough to Keyleth to touch her, and tugs at her ankle playfully. From where she's sitting on a rock, the water only goes up to a few inches below her knees and the edge of the flowing tunic she wears, and above that it's all pale skin and gooseflesh that Vex finds herself staring at for just a few seconds too long.

"Come get warm, darling. It'll clear whatever cloud you've got up in there."

"Is it that obvious?"

"I think you're a worry and a half away from making it rain," Vex smiles. She gives her big toe another little tug and a shake, but doesn't press the issue further when Keyleth makes no motion to join her in the water.

A moment passes, during which Vex lets the water come up to her chin so that she can blow bubbles into it, keeping her gaze on Keyleth as she gets lost again.

"Keyleth," she finally says, her voice a faint sing-song drawl; soft so as not to make her jump, but with that teasing, mischievous edge.

No. Seductive.

"Vex?" Keyleth says, trying to mimic her, but falling so short she sounds more confused than anything.

Moving closer, Vex straightens up through the water, and Keyleth's eye catches on the rivulets that run down her skin from the drenched tip of her braid, down, down, around the curve of her nipple. Keyleth was so distracted before that she hadn't even noticed Vex was naked until now, and it's not like it should come as a surprise—she knows her well enough to expect this—but it still captivates her attention to see her like this. Pressing her lips together hard, Keyleth uses up all the self-discipline she has and fixes her eyes on Vex's face. The curve of her mouth in that smile, the fullness of her lips, the—no. Higher. Eyes.

Vex has beautiful eyes, too.

She rests her arms on the rock next to Keyleth, looking up at her. "I don't like to see you distraught, you know, so I've got two suggestions."

"Yeah?" Keyleth asks. When she speaks, her voice is half of a raw whisper, and she clears her throat. Clearer now. "What's that?"

"Either you just say everything you've got on your mind, and I listen, no judgement," Vex says, grave in her honesty. "Or, if you just don't have the energy for all that—I can distract you. Keep your mind occupied."

There's a world of implications weaved into the spaces between her words, the notes her voice sings. She meets Keyleth's eye and, for once, Keyleth reads between the lines. Or maybe it's just that she hears what she wants to hear—and it just so happens that Vex is telling her exactly that.

"I'd like that," she says, and this time she doesn't mind how husky her voice sounds, because it sounds closer to the voice Vex uses when she's trying to sweep someone off their feet. "Not talking, I mean."

Warmth spreads below her ribcage as slowly as Vex's smile across her face. Anticipation builds within her like a slowly growing fire, watching the beads of water that roll down Vex's body as she moves, fleetingly taking Keyleth's hand to press a kiss to the pad of her index finger before letting go so that she can face her.

"Anything you don't like," she says gently, her voice devoid of any acting, any practiced charm, "tell me immediately."

Keyleth nods, and the moments passes, shifting back into the burning hot light of Vex's grin, of her gaze as she holds it, staring right into her eyes with her fingers light on Keyleth's ankles under the water. She breaks eye contact to bow her head and kiss a sensitive spot just above her knee, her smile stretching when she feels Keyleth's muscles move underneath her fingers, light and teasing on their way up. She's going deliberately slow, intent on drawing every breath out of Keyleth until she's lost entirely in the present, in the fleeting little kisses she leaves on her lower thighs as her hands rise to join her mouth.

For every inch of Keyleth's skin that's not in the water, Vex's hands are hot, her wet hands leaving warm trickles down her legs, and the hot spring is only part of the reasons why Keyleth's whole body is flushing. She feels her cheeks burn from the shyness that she ignores and from the excitement, the slow tingling that spreads over her body; when she hears something outside, this is when she starts and remembers how not alone they really are.

It takes a few seconds to draw the magic up to her fingers, especially now that Vex is kissing the inside of her thigh, but she manages to druidcraft a mess of vines tangling around the latch on the door. At least, if any of the guys decide to come for a soak, they'll have to struggle against it and give Vex enough time to break away and look normal. Keyleth hopes with every fibre of her being that that won't be necessary, because there's a sense of needy bliss rushing over her now that she doesn't want to lose until she's done exploring it.

Exploring. It's what she feels Vex is doing with her body, discovering her as she is discovering herself, moving a little closer now between her knees.

"Good thinking," she says of the makeshift lock she's placed on the door, looking at her with a different kind of fire in her eyes than she usually sees. Her cheeks are redder than usual, too, redder than they were a few minutes ago from just the water. It makes Keyleth feel a surge, down between her thighs, that she's having any effect on Vex at all.

Keyleth's heart is racing and, gods, she can feel the curve of Vex's breast against the side of her thigh.

"Can I?" Vex asks, still with her gaze on hers as she gives the laces around her waist a little tug. It's all that is holding her tunic closed, nothing below it, but it's only fair that Keyleth gets on the same level, so she nods, her mind racing at the idea of Vex getting so much more of her skin bared to her touch. She undoes the knot slowly, carefully, trailing two fingers down the front of her torso to make the sides of the tunic part.

But she doesn't open it any more than it does naturally. Not yet; Keyleth can tell that it's deliberate, and it makes her smile, how torturously Vex is going about it.

Smiling back, Vex seems to get an idea. She pulls one of her feathers from her hair and twirls it a bit, rolling the stem between her fingers before bringing it up to caress the line of Keyleth's jaw.

"Are you ticklish?"

"I could tell you," Keyleth says, surprising even herself with a bloom of confidence—like she's just a slightly different version of herself, if a little breathless, "or you could just find out."

Vex seems to appreciate the appearance of Sexy Keyleth as much as Keyleth does. She runs the feather over Keyleth's parted lips, down her chin to her throat, across a shoulder that the tunic has slipped from, uncovering a bit more skin as it falls. She doesn't say that this is everywhere she has been wanting to kiss for—a long time, too long to remember when it started. They haven't reached that point yet, and she doesn't want to rush Keyleth, not when what she needs is to slow down and unwind.

So she keeps going. She hasn't noticed that her bangs have fallen in her face after she took out the feather, but she does when Keyleth tenderly tucks it back behind her ear, glad to have something to do with her hands other than hold herself up. Vex pauses with the feather to catch her in the gesture, tilting her head to the side so that she can kiss the inside of her wrist, and then she returns to not-touching all the other places she wants to kiss.

She trails over her collarbone, to the hollow below her throat, then down over her chest. The feather moves Keyleth's tunic to the side so that Vex can run it along the curve of her breast, circling her nipple like the ghost of a touch, and this is when Keyleth's breath hitches. It's a lovely, wonderful sound that makes Vex smile, so she keeps the feather on her breast, teasing, listening to the way her growing lust makes Keyleth breathe harder, trying her best to keep it steady as Vex moves on to the other.

Every touch of the feather leaves behind a tingling in its wake, the same pleasant sort of feeling that comes with healing spell, but wilder, without the sting of a wound that comes with it. It's a kiss and a good itch, her skin growing more and more sensitive. Keyleth barely has the presence to feel self-conscious, now, and welcomes the feeling of the feather opening her tunic further down her ribcage and over the flat of her belly. Her heart is pounding in her ears as Vex runs the feather around her navel, then down, her muscles jumping with anticipation, but Vex doesn't go further down.

Her eye catches bright, golden red between Keyleth's thighs and she has to bite her lip, not wanting to stare but wishing she didn't have to tear her eyes away, and she brings the feather up over the curve of Keyleth's hip to her arm. Keyleth even lets out a needy, shaky little sigh, and it's not just breath: a soft burst of voice escapes her throat, this time. It's all Vex can do not to break and kiss her between her thighs, and it's not self-restraint that keeps her from it.

It's that she's too afraid to ask.

"Patience, darling," she says instead. It's probably not sanitary or nice for the rest of the party to be getting as wet as she is in the spring, but she couldn't give fewer fucks. It's just magic, anyway.

"That's asking a lot," Keyleth breathes out in a flustered little chuckle. Vex loves hearing her voice like this, loves knowing this is the effect she can have on her. She runs a hand over Keyketh's bare thigh with her free hand, thumb slipping on the inner side of it on its way up—but not too high, no matter how much the heat draws her in—and keeps it there. The anchor of her palm against Keyleth's skin feels safe in its intimacy, for the both of them.

As she moves to tickle her back, Keyleth sweeps her hair up over her shoulder, cascading down her front, and Vex moves it just a bit, gently, so that it doesn't obscure her breast. The feather travels over her shoulders and up and down her spine, following the shiver that runs along the column of it, jumping across every vertebra. Keyleth's hand finds Vex's on her thigh, reaching to be closer to her, and she laces their fingers together tighter than Vex might have expected. Her breaths are coming in shudders now, energy moving her body and crackling like a silent static.

Vex almost has pity on the both of them, but there's such a grace in the way Keyleth shivers with lust that she doesn't want to stop, not just yet. Her own heart is pounding in her ears now and probably has been longer than since she noticed. She brings the feather across her back, down her side—and this is where Keyleth flinches with a giggle that turns into a sharp exhale when Vex tracks the feather over the crease of her hip.

"Found the ticklish spot," Vex says, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Next time," Keyleth breathes without thinking, and Vex almost stops dead in her tracks, reeling at the thought that she wants there to be a next time, "I'll be finding _your_ ticklish spot."

"You know I love a challenge," Vex says with a lopsided grin.

She lets go of Keyleth's hand with a squeeze of her fingers and trails it down her thigh to make way for the feather, drawing a long, lazy line in a wave all the way across. She starts from her other knee—another tickle—back up to the line where her leg and hip meet, letting the feather's path come to its end. It's actually Keyleth who decides, putting her hand over hers and gently taking the feather to tuck it into her own hair, behind her ear.

"I'll give it back, promise."

"It looks lovely on you, darling," Vex says, mesmerised by the contrast of the steely owlbear blue against Keyleth's fiery red.

Keyleth lets go, and Vex almost moves back in the water, but then she realises that Keyleth is only getting her arms out of the sleeves of her tunic so she can push herself off the rock and into the water—into Vex's arms. She takes Vex's face in her hands and kisses full on the lips and the heat, the need almost burns Vex as she kisses back, her hands tangling in the wet ends of her hair at her shoulders. Having stood still for what has been feeling like hours watching, watching, doing nothing but _watching_ Vex, she feels desperate to be touching her now, so much that she forgets about propriety and inexperience and feeling utterly shy and out of her depth, her fingers tracing down her shoulders, down the curve of her back, and up again.

Vex is kissing down her neck when Keyleth cups her breasts and draws a sigh from her. She tilts her head, her mouth against Vex's ear, and she whispers, just for her: "All I can think about is you."


End file.
